


Regrets and Reconciliations

by Hoothootmotherf_ckers



Series: Hurts & Hugs [2]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Chronic Pain, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Feels, Gen, Headaches & Migraines, Hurt/Comfort, Team as Family, the obligatory post S&S Taako and Lucretia talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-27 05:00:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16695898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hoothootmotherf_ckers/pseuds/Hoothootmotherf_ckers
Summary: Lucretia's struggling, after everything that's happened. But she can handle it on her own. After everything, she can't ask the others to help. Right?





	Regrets and Reconciliations

After that day, Lucretia tries better to hide the migraines. She knows her family just wants to help. She knows they care about her, that they don’t want to see her in pain. 

So fine. She won’t let them.

She starts working through the pain, hiding her squinting behind tinted glasses. She schedules “meetings” with various staffers so she can hide for an hour here or there for naps. She tries disgusting potions brewed up by Robbie that are probably extremely illegal, but honestly that’s a drop in the bucket at this point. She does her best to shift this burden off of her loved ones, to not worry her family. 

And so begins what Magnus dubs “The Self-Care Cold War.” 

Sometimes, Angus just _happens_ to miscast cone of silence so it surrounds her instead of the intended area. So she leaves, moves all her work to another room, another desk. Someone keeps putting blankets in her room, soft and heavy knits that just build up into a pile in the corner. She keeps having to find new places to hide, as invariably someone manages to find her and bring her food, or a drink, or _something._ And she’s seen Barry and Lup in their lab trying to synthesize new magical painkillers, or a localized version of Darkness spells. 

It’s getting frustrating, and she does’t know how to fix it. 

Things come to a head when she walks into a communal living room and finds her family - well, the six oldest pieces of it, anyway - sitting together on the sofas, chatting idly and nibbling on snacks. They look up at her and she sighs, a bit worried and a bit relieved. 

She smiles weakly. “Hey guys. Er, since you’re all here, there’s something I need to talk to you about.”

Magnus grins back, oddly bright. “Funny, that’s why we’re here too. Take a seat, here, and how about you go first.” He scoots over on the sofa and Lucretia neatly tucks herself in against his side.

She steels herself. “I need you to stop worrying about me. I - look.” She’s tearing up a little. “I get you care, I get you want to help. I need you to stop.” 

She can’t look anyone in the eyes. “It’s been almost a year, now, and you’re all still here. I know you have places to be, people to be with. Merle, you have a family. Lup, Barry, _Taako-_ “ her voice cracks “- you all have careers, Magnus, you have a career _and_ dogs. Davenport, you have a whole world to see.” She’s shrinking in on herself, torn between pulling herself away from Magnus and leaning into him entirely. “I already took so much of your lives. I took ten fucking years from all of you. I can’t keep doing that. I need you to go.”

There’s silence. Then Magnus speaks, unnaturally even. “Okay. So, let me just get the background for this all straight, so everyone here gets what’s happening. You’ve told me that you feel that you need to - atone, or something, for what you’ve done. What happened. So you’ve been pushing yourself trying to get through this work, trying to keep the burden off other people. That workload, on top of all the shit you’ve been through over the past decade, is giving you severe migraines, but you’re still trying to push through it alone, for reasons I’m not going to get into just yet. That tracks so far?”

She nods into his side. He’s so solid and warm and _real_ , a far cry from this frail form her body has become. She can feel him sigh. 

“Okay, next up: you have not stopped having these migraines. These have been going on for months if not years, with no effective treatment, no sign of stopping. Consolidating accounts, because I know you try to hide them, we’re guessing you get a migraine, on average, for about six hours every four days, with some margin for error but oh man I’m not getting into that math right now. That’s a low estimate, but sound about right?” Still not looking, she waves her hand in the universal sign for “more or less.”

Magnus takes a moment and a deep breath before the next part. “Okay, so we’re mostly up to date at this point. One last piece. I have some questions, just yes or no, that I need you to answer. You can say it, nod, thumbs up, whatever, we just need an answer somehow. Okay?”

Her voice doesn’t shake, though it’s a bit muffled by Magnus’s shirt. “Yes.”

“These migraines are pretty objectively painful, and you, being a mostly rational person, do not enjoy having them.”

“Yes.”

“You try to deal with them on your own, but it doesn’t work very well.”

“…Yes.”

“Despite that, you refuse to let us help you.”

“I can’t-“

“Luce, hey. Yes or no, okay?” He’s pulling her into an awkward side hug. She’s shaking. 

“Yes then, _fuck_.”

“You think we’re staying around to help you out of some obligation, out of pity.”

She nods, and as if from far away hears something shatter. Magnus’s voice is a bit uneven, now.

“Checking again, you do not enjoy these migraines, you do not want them to happen.”

She nods, attention focused on the texture of Magnus’s shirt, clenched tight in her shaking fists.

“Last one now, okay? You feel you don’t deserve help from us because of what happened.” 

She can’t say this one. She can only nod, throat tight and face hidden from the world as if it will save her. 

There’s silence for a moment, broken by what almost sounds like an electrical hum. She looks up, confused.

Her family, her crew… they look appalled. Merle is sitting in the wreckage of cookies and porcelain shards from a plate he apparently dropped, eyes wide with shock. Davenport’s face is expressionless, but his white knuckles belie his emotions. Taako’s not looking at her, she can’t tell what he’s thinking. He’s focused on Barry, who has tears in his eyes. Lup, currently a lich and the source of the hum, doesn’t have a face at the moment as she’s vibrating so fast that she’s blurring at the edges, literally losing her composure. 

But worst of all is Magnus. He’s not angry, or worried, or sad. He just looks defeated, like he’s had one of his worst fears confirmed. 

“I… sorry,” she whispers, distraught. “I didn’t want to hurt you anymore. I’ll just… go now.” 

“Hey, nope, nuh-uh,” Magnus says, voice shaking as he gently pulls her back into her seat. “You’re staying here and we’re talking about this, because there has been a fundamental miscommunication.”

“Lucretia…” Barry says, choked up. “Yes, the Voidfish shit years were terrible, and yeah we still disagree on a lot of that. It’s been rough going. But do you really think that… that we’d want you to be in pain from that, after all we’ve been through?” 

She shakes her head, eyes squeezed shut. “Better me than anyone else.”

**”That’s _bullshit_.”** Lup’s voice is crackly and distorted, as if through a bad radio, and her body is flickering with orange flame. Lucretia flinches and Lup jerks back, horrified. She visibly stops for a moment and takes what passes for a deep breath to pull herself together. When she speaks again, it’s in her normal voice. “Lucretia, I’m sorry, that’s bullshit. We don’t… look, you shouldn’t be in pain. This shouldn’t be happening. We don’t want that. We never wanted that.”

Lucretia jolts again as something solid hits her squarely in the legs. Looking down, she can see Merle sitting on the ground and hugging her shins tightly. “Damn, Lucretia,” he says shakily, “we’re not here out of - fucking _obligation_ or pity or guilt or whatever the fuck. We care about you. We love you, we care about you, we want to help. Why do you think… gods, Lucretia. Yeah, we’ve been through shit. But fuck! I’m over it, everyone’s dealing with it and coping and shit, why would you think we all hate you?”

For just a second, her eyes flick to Taako. It’s instinctive, and so small, it would be easy to miss. But Taako doesn’t miss much. His face stiffens into a mask and with three quick strides he’s gone. Merle glances up, looks back to Lucretia, and with feeling says, “ _shit._ ” 

“That pretty much sums it up,” Magnus says heavily. They watch as Barry and Lup rush out after Taako, Lup muttering curses that are growing more staticky. Merle settles in to his apparent new life as a shin limpet. Lucretia feels sick. 

Davenport sighs and walks over to stand by the awkward cluster. “Lucretia… even though we’re angry or upset with what happened, we care about you. And really, you’re doing too much alone. I’ve talked to Carey, Killian, Avi… so many people up here want to help with your work, not out of pity or because they think you can’t handle it. People care about you, and it’s just a straightforward desire to help.”

Magnus pulls her closer. “We aren’t staying here out of obligation,” he says quietly. “Yeah, we have other parts of our lives. But it all comes back to here, back to living with our family and the people we love. You can try to push us away, try to get us to leave, but we’re just going to keep coming back.” He cracks a small smile. “We’re real fucking annoying like that.” 

There’s a few moments of silence, Lucretia reeling with each new revelation. It’s broken by the door slamming back open Taako bursts back into the room, and Lucretia and Magnus both stiffen. He rolls his eyes. “Hold your fucking horses, big guy. I just. We need to talk,” he says, looking straight at Lucretia. “Peanut gallery, mind giving us a minute?”

Davenport gently takes Magnus’s hand and pulls him up, the larger man seeming less than thrilled. Looking back over his shoulder, Magnus starts mouthing what Lucretia thinks are exit strategies, or maybe just a nervous monologue. Taako sighs. “Magnus. I can see you still.”

Magnus glares and continues with a series of hand signs that Lucretia _really_ doesn’t understand, ending with the universal point of “I’m watching you” at Taako. But he leaves with Davenport, Merle trailing behind. 

Just as the dwarf walks out, Taako calls, “Merle. Wait a sec.” He hangs back, looking extremely curious and hiding it poorly. Taako doesn’t hesitate. “I need you to cast Zone of Truth.”

“Oh hell yeah, finally an appreciation for my talents!” Merle says, puffing out his chest and waving a hand. “I cast Zone of Truth!”

“Merle, how many times do I have to tell you that you don’t need to announce your spells?” Taako asks, exasperated. “You know I’m right! I literally cannot lie to you right now! Quit your bullshit already!” The dwarf just grins cheekily and Taako pinches the bridge of his nose. “Okay. Ugh. Whatever. Get outta here, old man.”

The door closes behind him with a click, and Taako swiftly approaches Lucretia. She tenses, but he just grabs her by the shoulders and pulls her into a rough hug. 

Lucretia’s frozen. This is not what she expected, this is nothing she ever thought would happen. She doesn’t know what to do and so she just stands there, arms limp at her sides. 

Taako steps back and she looks away. His voice is gruff. “Look, okay, I’m only going to say this once. I don’t hate you.”

She blinks, shocked. He sighs. “I don’t forgive you. I may never forgive you. You put us through a lot and I don’t think you made the right choice.”

She’s shrinking back and he puts up a hand. “That does not mean I don’t understand why you did it. I do. I get desperation and fear and need to protect the ones you love. And look, this is never going to be a forgive and forget situation—” he winces. “Oof, bad phrasing. Anyway, I can’t forgive this. But that doesn’t mean I can’t move forward.”

She has tears in her eyes again, but not the tears of despair from before. He gives a weak smile. “Ten years of that amnesiac bullshit really fucking sucked, don’t get me wrong, but it doesn’t cancel out a hundred years of being family.” He pauses. “Well, ok, maybe a little, hmm. Okay, so we’re at a net value of ninety years family. So I guess just… don’t fuck up for the next ninety years straight and we’ll be doing alright?” 

She’s laughing a little through the tears streaming down her face, and he grins lopsidedly at her. “Don’t tell the others, I need to keep up this whole aloofness thing. Well, maybe tell Magnus, I’d rather not get thrown off the moon. I could just float my way back but it’d make him feel bad. Or I guess I could let him do it as like, a therapy thing. Huh. Gotta think about that one.”

He’s clearly chattering on for her benefit, but it’s working because her heart feels lighter than it has in years. A bit more than ten, if she wants to be specific. Taako gives a little wave and holds a finger to his lips as he backs through the doorway. In an instant, he’s replaced by Magnus, clearly worried.

“Luce, sis, are you okay? What happened?” he demands anxiously.

She collapses against him, smiling and laughing and crying all at once. “It’s okay. I’m okay,” she chokes out.

She doesn’t need Merle’s spell to know that for the first time in a very long time, she really means it.


End file.
